Jim Barrett

In case there was any remaining doubt that mainstream Republicans have abandoned mainstream science, look no further than the House Republicans’ recent crusades against their own scientific ideas. According to The Hill: “Lawmakers voted 234-178 … to prevent EPA from factoring the “social cost of carbon” into rules unless a

“Utterly Boneheaded.” That is how Joe Nocera, writing in The New York Times characterized James Hansen (head of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies), Bill McKibben (founder of 350.org) and other climate change activists opposing the Keystone XL pipeline. If you haven’t been following it, the pipeline in question would bring something called